Holy Crap, This is Racist

Forget Harry Reid*. You want a liberal racist, look no further than the Dean of American Political Cartooning, Pat Oliphant himself.

“21st Century building, 7th Century people.”

That’s what his little bird-like avatar thingy quips. (I think if you quip, you should be automatically registered as Criminal Douchebag.) Dubai has been at the forefront of global financial speculation and excess, using the same dodgy tools as London, New York and Tokyo. Shouldn’t they get credit for being current? Modern? Post-modern? Late capitalist?

Camels? Really?! No helicopters or limos or Humvees?

Perhaps Oli will be gracious enough to contribute this piece for the anniversary edition of the late Edward Said’s Orientalism. “Exhibit A!” Ed’s dead, but this shit lives on.

*who had a valid point to make about the prejudices of the American electorate, but chose insensitive language to do it. Sorry, Michael “Honest Injun” Steele — not resignation-worthy.

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What it all boils down to is pandering to ignorant Americans for the sake of churning out “something” every day. Pleasing pinhead editors probably enters into it somewhere also. I stand by my opinion that mainstream “journalists” and news people are some of the dumbest I’ve ever met. The term “educated idiot” is apropos here.

Editors never seem to call Oliphant on his shit. I think he’s brilliant most of the time, but he relies on some pretty rotten stereotypes to convey some pretty backward ideas about the world every now and then. Esp. the middle east. This cartoon is worse than Muhammad with a turban bomb.